weird start

[88lxi-shortram]

ok i know i said my timing was off but i checked again today and it only seems like its 1/2 or maybe a tooth off so i dont think this is affecting it but when i try to start the car (which it does start and drive now) it cranks then stops(like it hesitates)then keppes cranking and starts up... my teacher thinks it could be timing but isnt sure and i honestly dont think such a minor fault in timing would do this. i removed my vc and the oil had a slight scent of gas but i think thats just from the few hundred times i turned it over and it didnt spark(i had the firing order wrong so we tryed and tryed). should i change my oil? my friends camry hydrolocked b/c his FPR just gave it too much gas and it mixed with the oil and caused a hydrolock and i cant afford to buy yet another motor.

[Hauntd ca3]

if the cam timing is tooth out, the ign timing is out by the same amount unless you check it and re-set it.
being a few degrees out in the timing can cause that hesitation in cranking.
if the cam timing is advanced or retarded one tooth, it shouldnt hurt the motor at all, will just feel a bit funny.
check and set the ign timing and see how it goes

[88lxi-shortram]

how do you check ignition timing? and adjust?

[A18A]

im sure every motor I've had does this if they've been sitting in the shed a while. i dunno why but when you crank it they sound like the firing order is out (like you said) or something is stopping it from turning over (ie hydrolocking, like you said) does it at least run half decent after a while? it normally fixes its own self for me after driving it for a day or so

[RobDirt89]

Does it like kick back against the starter? like the engine is sparking way to early. My 89 lxi fi did that when i first got it. Once i got it started it ran fine. I did some research on it and narrowed the problem down to the ignition control module. Its toward the front bottom of the dis. 2 screws hold it on, and it may have a small shield over it. I bought one from my work, NAPA for $50 and popped it in. Although that is an employee price, i think they are realy about $100. After that the engine cranked and started fine. Something to check into.

[88lxi-shortram]

im sure every motor I've had does this if they've been sitting in the shed a while. i dunno why but when you crank it they sound like the firing order is out (like you said) or something is stopping it from turning over (ie hydrolocking, like you said) does it at least run half decent after a while? it normally fixes its own self for me after driving it for a day or so

please read it all... please i know its alot but i need the help

it runs decent to me except for the shitty IACV problem... its got the infamous honda up and down idle... but another thing ive been having problem with is my transmission.. i think. heres teh syptoms: 1. rough ass reverse drop ( my entire motor jumps down hard) 2. while i drive i can have my foot to the florr and the engine revs higher than the transmission makes me go ( almost like a 5 speed would do if your clutch wont catch).... i think theres too much ATF in there causing the retarded acceleration but my friend says maybe timing because my idles higher than it should be and the converter cant keep up or something like that.

and one more weird ass problem that just blows my mind is that twice today after i cranked it and was about to put it in gear i pressed on the brake petal and it just died... it didnt sputter first or anything i just died...i couldnt think of anything that would do that...

lol heres another problem i cant get either... my headlights are going apeshit!!! if i press the switch on the dash they both flip up and stay up fine... the same going down. but as soon as i flip the light switch the right one goes down and the left one goes up and down.... relays are fine and the motor arms have clearance to spin.. the motors allow them to go up and down so i dont think it could be motors so im lost in the water here...

ok thats it for now thank god :D

[Oldblueaccord]

how do you check ignition timing? and adjust?

You need to redo your sig if your asking about checking your timing.

The hint it starts with a timing light.


wp

[88lxi-shortram]

I meant without a timing light. I knew how to check the cam timing and crank timing but didn't know how to check ignition timing. And no as far as my signature goes, I just started so I do lube, tires, brakes and some suspension. I'm not doing timing and stuff. Like I said I just started. And he'll with the way cars are now that's really all that gets done in the first place. Routine maitenance. I'm not starting anything or stepping on anyones toes but before you insult somebody like you did you should consider the fact I'm 17 and just started getting into the auto ind. Sorry I'm not a master tech but I'm trying to learn every bit that I can and there's nothing wrong with not knowing. There's something wrong with not knowing and not trying to figure it out.

[lostforawhile]

have you hooked up a voltmeter and checked the voltae while cranking? the headlights fliping like that often indicates a low voltage condition, check your battery cable and ground, and check the ground from engine to body, verify everything, the strange cranking also could be a bad connection on the grounds,

[Hauntd ca3]

if you have a good ear, you can get the ign timing pretty bloody close by ear.
but if you have access to a timing light, learn to use it.
you can even tell if a cylinder has a misfire with one.

as for someone "insulting you" i dont think you should take offence.
but you shouldnt call yourself a technician until you are fully qualified.
until then you are what we in the trades call the bitch,boy,gopher or to be correct, apprentice.
i've been in the trades for nearly 5 years after playing with cars since before you were born, and i am still an apprentice in one of the fields i have chosen.
and a quick word of advice, guys that have worked in dealerships all their career are not the best people to teach, unless you want to work in a dealership.
you would be better off in a suburban workshop that does pretty much everything.
i started off in a country garage working on things from ride on lawn mowers to kenworth trucks, and absolutely everything in between.
you need to know how to improvise, make tools, make parts, fix things that would be thown away in a dealership.
when i moved from the country to town and started doing auto electrical ,that whole " if i cant get it, i'll make it or fix it" bit made it so much easier. the best part is,because of the country garage experiance, i've expanded
the type of jobs the place i work can take in, which makes me look good and makes the company look good to.
sorry to go on and on. not trying to put you down or off the auto trades or anything, just passing on some personal experiance to someone starting out

[lostforawhile]

post a video of the cranking sound, it's hard to tell just by description if it's a voltage condition or a timing condition

[lostforawhile]

lets start from the beginning, did you change the timing belt? how did you set the timing? first pull your valve cover so you can see the cam gear, now bring up the mark on the fkywheel, line it up with the pointer, make sure the mark on the cam gear is facing up, if it's not, it needs one more rotation, remember the cam turns at half crank speed, when the mark on the flywheel is lined up, and the cam gear mark is pointing up, both lines on the sides of the cam gear should be aligned with the edges of the head, now see if the dizzy rotor is pointing at #1 firing position, or close to it, you said it runs, so I don't think you put a timing belt on with the cam gear 180 out or anyhting,

[Dr_Snooz]

Your trans is toast. Your idle is caused by either low coolant or a vacuum leak. If it's low coolant, be sure to fill and bleed the system properly. I thought I remembered the headlights being a problem with the switch. I might be misremembering though.

[lostforawhile]

Your trans is toast. Your idle is caused by either low coolant or a vacuum leak. If it's low coolant, be sure to fill and bleed the system properly. I thought I remembered the headlights being a problem with the switch. I might be misremembering though.

it's usually the module, right behind the fusebox on that bracket holding up the left side of the fusebox, but low voltage or a bad ground will cause the module to act screwy under these conditions

[88lxi-shortram]

the headlights fliping like that often indicates a low voltage condition, check your battery cable and ground, and check the ground from engine to body, verify everything, the strange cranking also could be a bad connection on the grounds,

i have to use a jump box to start it most of the time, unless i just finsihed driving it and itll crank sometimes. other times i turn the key and it just clicks and all the dash lights go out... my terminals are a bit loose but i need to replace those... so that may be the source of the voltage problem...


post a video of the cranking sound, it's hard to tell just by description if it's a voltage condition or a timing condition

thatll have to wait til moday, were out of town for the ford AAA student challenge until saturday but i have to go stright home so ill get one monday. its not doing it anymore though for the most part.. it does take a while but ill still post a vid


lets start from the beginning, did you change the timing belt? how did you set the timing? first pull your valve cover so you can see the cam gear, now bring up the mark on the fkywheel, line it up with the pointer, make sure the mark on the cam gear is facing up, if it's not, it needs one more rotation, remember the cam turns at half crank speed, when the mark on the flywheel is lined up, and the cam gear mark is pointing up, both lines on the sides of the cam gear should be aligned with the edges of the head, now see if the dizzy rotor is pointing at #1 firing position, or close to it, you said it runs, so I don't think you put a timing belt on with the cam gear 180 out or anyhting,

thats what weird i did that and lined up the crank and then went to look at my cam gear. the line on the side never line up perfectly with the head. if the left one is lined up then the right one is up a little bit. it may be the way im looking at it but we did use a ruler and one side seems to be up a little.. i havent messed witht the dizzy yet i plan on doing it on monday, ive been trying to figure out the transmission problem because even with bad timing it should respond btter then that.


Your trans is toast. Your idle is caused by either low coolant or a vacuum leak. If it's low coolant, be sure to fill and bleed the system properly. I thought I remembered the headlights being a problem with the switch. I might be misremembering though.

ill test the vaccums monday as well, and as far as the trans being shot, i really hope not but if it is i promise you guys there wont be another automatice going in there :D




and about the sig thing. i was in a bad mood and took it wrong. i had a friend txt me saying he wont be able to pay me the money i need to pay back the school and then i saw that and took it wrong. but yes i may not be a full on technician and yes i may be a shopboy but the fact that im 17 in HS and im doing more than sweeping florrs and cleaning bathrooms on the first two days of work makes me feel accomplished... on my uniform it does say technician so i do call my self a technician and take pride in my work... im sorry if i hurt anyones feelings

[Dr_Snooz]

I'm going to agree with A18A. If your car has been sitting a long time with no or little driving, it will develop all kinds of gremlins. The best way to fix them is to drive it. From what you describe about the starting, it sounds like it might be the igniter. Does your tach randomly hop around while starting by any chance? Another thing that really helped my starts was the lazy rebuild (http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66468). I honestly don't know why it helped, but it did. If you open the dizzy and find a lot of red dust or engine oil, start budgeting for a new distributor.

For the half-tooth that you are off, do some more investigation. You want tension on the front (radiator side) of the belt. It should line up perfectly. If you're turning the crank clockwise, that's the wrong direction and won't line up. If it's still off, you might have something going on with the belt or the tensioner or have it half-off one pulley or something. Check it out.

If your trans is slipping, it's toast. Throw it away because it's done. Try adjusting your TV cable. Try a fluid change, but don't expect much.

I'm pretty jealous that you get to work on Benzes all day. You probably won't ever see one with a distributor. The Germans went to coilover electronic ignition decades ago. Knowing how to time an engine with a light is becoming a lost art. Don't be seduced by the siren song of German cars though. What you're driving right now is way better than any German car ever made.

[2oodoor]

I am amazed at how little you have retained since you've been here. That is being frank not insulting. Congrats on the bimmer job, good exposure.

I have just a few points here:
If youre having to jumpstart it all the time, well of course you have electrical issues.:gun:
If you have been adjusting "this and that" around the throttle body and ignition timing, IAC, well then you most certainly inadvertently thrown off the TV adjustment on the transmission.
Any change in the tune, throttle position at idle and increase or decrease in off throttle (tip in) performance no matter how you do it, well it also affects the transmission shifting and a small adjustment to the TV cable is required.

If you continue to drive these too much out of adjustment it will tear up the transmission shortly there after.

You can do a lot of damage trying to run this kind of car on a crap battery.

When checking the cam timing make sure you use the scribed "T" mark on the flywheel and not any of the painted marks.
Reviewing your other threads, It came to my attention you suspect gas contaminated oil, that needs to be changed asap or you will be chasing demons. It can cause cylinder balance issues in regards to compression, and also throw off the O2 SENSOR BIG TIME.

Hunting idle is usually the coolant a little low as well as the need to have air bleed out so the coolant will make it up to the ECT and Fast Idle piece of crap thingy. Yes I just insulted the car part.

Last but not least, you CAN .. not the bimmer term, but yes you can can, lol adjust the cam timing without removing anything but the top cover.

[88lxi-shortram]

Well I've never really had to worry about timing so I never learned it but now I'm getting better at the concept. But anyways yes snooz my tach jumps around but it's always done that on and off. Usually at idle after I revved it would be the time it would do that( I'm speaking of before the swap by the way) I haven't adjusted the tv cable at all. I never even thought about trying that. I always think of the bigger problems that could be there and for some reason the cable slipped my mind. After I drain more fluid from the trans I will Definitly adjust that. But I do think my trans is going out.... It's always had a pretty rough park to reverse drop problem but now it's a million times worse. The whole engine and car drops down with it. It's not low on coolant by any means I makes sure ever time I drive it. But I am running water but I don't think that would effect it but if I'm wrong correct me. I'll look into bleeding the coolant after I do the other things. But either way if the trans is bad I've got alot of money coming my way in the next month. I'm cashing in a few of my bonds, my bday is the 4 th and graduation is the 28 so I'll have money for a new trans if I have to. But it will be a 5 speed cuz I've always told myself when I had the money to do it I would and not only would I have the money but I'd have an excuse to

[2oodoor]

you just put that transmission in there, so why think big when it may be problems with the install such as mounting , shifter adjustment, Throttle Valve TV cable, and incorrect fluid types/quanity.. oh and torque converter fasteners.

[88lxi-shortram]

what do you mean by mounting? i bolted it up right and torqued it down to spec. the mounts are in fine as well. i torqued down the converter bolts and all other bolts that had anything to do with the transmission and anything else that was vital or went into the block. the fluid type is the genuine honda atf. i did overfill and need to take one more quart out. i never adjusted the tv cable or the shifter cable. so ill put those on mylist... but the reverse drop is pretty scary sometimes. i feel like its literally about to rip the crossmember out and drop to the floor

[A18A]

that can be caused by the over filled gearbox. i would drain a little bit out, get the car driving and give it a bit of a run-in before doing anything else related to the gearbox

[88lxi-shortram]

thats what i was goin to try before i started adjusting anything

[88lxi-shortram]

Well I haven't be able to wrench away at anything yet but later Friday I got a chance to sneak on campus with a friend and fiddle around a little. I decided to check my tv cable after we inspected for water leaks.( my sunroof leaks occasionally ) and figured out I probably do need to adjust the cable because I got in the car and put my foot to the floor and told him to play with the piece on the trans and he said he could still move it up a good bit. So I will be adjusting that and draining to specs monday

[2oodoor]

first ? now what is reverse drop? sounds wierd the way you describe it I would guess mounts >?
Ive never adjusted the TV cable or even checked it by flooring the pedal? I start at just opposite, I see where it is at home position and make sure it isnt pulling yet, and not too loose either THEN I start adjusting it to suit my shift points, and so it holds onto overdrive lock up at 60 without constantly jumping in and out.
If the cable is pulling on the lever at idle, then the trans will act really screwy.

oh and too much fluid is FAIL, it dont hold that much either really...

[88lxi-shortram]

It can't be mounts I just replaced all of them and they're still good. The reason I checked with my foot to the floor was I couldn't turn the car on. And since the engine is revving higher than the trans is going I figured the lever should be fully engaged. So I put my foot to the floor and had him look at it and it made alot of sense in my opinion. To me it seems like the lever should be all the way up when the throttle is all the way open.

[88lxi-shortram]

Today in class time was limited so I only adjusted the tv cable and i didnt drain the ATF. I did notice a slight change is response but it still lags. Tomoro I will post a video of the start, idle, driving conditions, and anything else you guys think i should. But I will be taking another look at my timing because today during the drive it sputtered like it didn't want to go and later on I got the chance to dig my foot a little deeper into the floor and it revved up high like it should and then when I let off it suddenly died out. This is leading me to the conclusion that my timing is Definitly off enough to affect the car and I will be hooking up a light to it asap. Another thing I noticed is that I really only drive the car for 5-10 minutes if that and when I pop the hood it's hotter than hell under there. I need a new exhaust gasket but I dont think it would do that much from leaking. My temp gauge never goes over half so it's not overheating. Any input is great guys :)

[88lxi-shortram]

ok heres one of the videos of my car i got today the other one is slowly uploading and ill post as soon as its done.

this is the first time starting the car today...
http://s1130.photobucket.com/albums/m533/corehardcustoms/?action=view&current=100_0666.mp4

[ShyBoyCA6]

It seems ok i see that its slows down at the beginning and gets up to speed. so is this really the first time starting the car after the rebuild or swap? this will most likely happen if the car has been sitting for a while? did you put fresh gas?

Also did it do it again after turning off and turning it back on again?

[88lxi-shortram]

No I did the first startup months ago. It was the first start yesterday... I only posted that so everyone would know it was a cold start

[2oodoor]

hard to tell anything by that short video, next time keep the cam focused on the engine and wander about the bay some so I can see something.
It still is going to be hard to diagnose this thing with a crap battery in it, I see you jumpboxed it. Voltage is important for reference.

[88lxi-shortram]

ill make a better one tommorrow. todays my bday so with my mom bugging me about how im 18 now blah blah blah, i didnt grab my camera so i cant make it today. but i will get it eventually.... now what voltage do you want? the voltage from the jump box, batt, alt? all of the above? also, the idle problem was wat i dug into the most yesterday. i checked vaccums and pulled the bottom dizzy vacuum which i believe is the timing advance if im correct? and it stopped until i hooked it to an alternate vacuum

[2oodoor]

happy birthday :tongue:
I hope you get a battery as a present!
As long as the alternator is having to try to charge a bad battery or even the jumpbox, I cant imagine you could get a steady voltage.
Diagnosing has to start with the basic simple issues before you can go condeming parts and adjusting things to compensate for underlying issues.

[88lxi-shortram]

yea you and me both ... thx for the bday wishes...i didnt get a batttery but i got a little money which you best belive is going in my car. i just realized yesterday while i was workin with my headlights waiting for a lift that one headlamp doesnt work.... my motors where still going apeshit so i finally got tired of trying to diagnose them and unpluged the motor so they stay up. this is just temporary though dont worry. so i may end up getting a set of HIDs when the rest of my money comes in... and i get a new battery. but hopefully today ill have the car on the lift to inspect for the leaks that have sprung up... i have 3 leaks i need to look into, 2 of them i think i can fix with clamps or maybe a new hose but one is a very slow leak from the pan (i believe) and its not making a huge leak so if it is ill leave it for now. i just need my car on the road and getting me to work and back. also if i have time ill be hooking up a timing light to make srue im not off by too much. hopefully ill snap some pics and able to document this a little better.

and by the way im moving all of this back to my "build thread" since its gotten away from the topic of start and back to status of the car... heres the link for you guys just in case you forgot. http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74637